


Of Worse or of Better

by Neffectual



Series: Our Lives Are Not Just Backing Tracks [1]
Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M, Playlist, Snippets, collection, musically inclined, things happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-21 17:01:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/902709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neffectual/pseuds/Neffectual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack worries what he would have to offer Eugene outside of the zombie apocalyspe: “They had real jobs, back then.  Real jobs, like real people – Eugene was sent here from Canada, for fuck’s sake. They don’t send you to another country if you’re no good at what you do. He was a writer, and a damn good one, and all I did on the road here was slow him down. What the fuck has he got to stay for?”</p>
<p>Corresponds to 'The Bed Song' by Amanda Palmer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Worse or of Better

It’s a rare day that they’re all outside, enjoying the sunshine, no missions going out and the radio show put on hold for a few hours. Sam and Jack and leaning against one of the comms. shacks, watching as Five tries to pull Eugene up onto her back. They’re laughing, and the way they shine in the light makes Jack’s eyes hurt. He turns away, and Sam raises an eyebrow.  
“Well, just look at them.” Jack says, quietly.  
“Yeah.” Sam smiles, like the world’s lighting him up from within, “We got really lucky.”  
“It’s a zombie apocalypse, Sam, no one got lucky.”  
Sam shrugs, but doesn’t say anything else. Maybe it’s different for him, Jack thinks, because Sam and Runner Five have a relationship which doesn’t so much work as pass by with pining and longing looks. Whereas, for Jack, watching her small hands around Eugene’s arms, the way her hair catches the light in the impractical ponytail she insists upon, makes him feel like he’s intruding. Eugene wouldn’t let him lift him like that, not ever, too undignified. But it seems like a lot of people have been willing to make exceptions for Five, recently.  
“Why do you say that?” Sam asks, clearly deciding the silence has gone on too long.  
“Look at us. Some washed-up raver and a kid failing uni. What have we got to offer them?”  
“Love?” Sam says, but he says it quietly, so Jack doesn’t have to respond to it.  
“They had real jobs, back then. Real jobs, like real people – Eugene was sent here from Canada, for fuck’s sake. They don’t send you to another country if you’re no good at what you do. He was a writer, and a damn good one, and all I did on the road here was slow him down. What the fuck has he got to stay for?”  
Sam can only shake his head – he hasn’t got the answer, either. Jack walks himself back into the studio and shuts the door. The hiatus can wait, and he can put the headphones on and lock out the sound of Eugene’s laughter mixing with that of Five.

Eugene lets himself in about half an hour later, warm from the sun and smelling like – well, like sweat, they all do, but cleaner sweat, sweat from being outside in the warm, not stale sweat from being in the same clothes for too long.  
“You could’ve told me you were coming back in, I’d’ve come with you.” He drawls, and Jack tried to find the smile he can normally manage to muster for Eugene, no matter how bad the day is going. He can’t, and settles for accepting the kiss to the top of his head without any response, “Turned round and you were gone.”  
He settles himself in the only chair they could find with arms – it shakes a little, but they’re both used to that now.  
“Things to do.” Jack says, and he knows he sounds snappish, short, angry, knows Eugene will hear it, but can’t bring himself to care, “We can’t all dally in the sunshine with pretty girls.”  
“That what this is about?” And that’s new, ‘Gene never sounding like that before, “It was just a bit of fun, Jack. You remember, fun, that thing you used to be really good at?”  
A shot in the dark, Jack wonders, or has Sam said something?  
“Because fun is so important at the end of the world.”  
“That was how you sold this radio station gig to me, yeah. Even if I do have to listen to too much of your rave music, you candy kid.”  
It’s the last straw, on top of so many, and Jack turns in his chair, wishing for those spinny office ones which were so good for when you were in a huff.  
“Well, I’m sorry we can’t all be serious journalists who actually got paid for doing what they liked, but hey, I’m sure you can trade me in for something new next time Five goes out on a supply run. Hey, I’ve got an idea, maybe – ”  
“Maybe you should stop talking.” Eugene says, levering himself out of the chair and moving to the door, the distinctive fwup-clickclick of his foot and then the crutches echoing in the sudden silence, “If you didn’t want to do this anymore, you could have just said.”  
Jack freezes, and Eugene catches it out the corner of his eye, must, because he turns.  
“What, was that not what you were saying? Did I somehow misunderstand you telling me to find someone else?”  
That noise has to be his heart breaking, has to be, because if not, it’s Eugene slamming the door behind him, leaving, and that can’t be happening, isn’t allowed to be happening.  
They share a bunk, so there’s nothing for him to do when it gets dark than head back there, expecting to find Eugene, and finding a note, instead. He should read it, Jack knows, but he just sits there and stares blankly off into space for a little while. Then, when he knows it’s past curfew and he can’t go out, he leans over and opens the folded food label.  


  
_Jack,_   
_You don’t have to worry about sharing anymore._   
_I’ve found somewhere else to be._   
_I hope you’ll be happy, whoever he is._   


It’s not signed, no love, no best wishes, no name. Nothing, nothing meaningful, nothing giving anything away. No clue as to where he might have gone. Not unless you know him, anyway. Jack switches his little personal radio onto the right frequency and listens to the strains of the music. It’s a song he’s never heard before, which is pretty unusual when you think about it, considering he was in charge of half the collection, but generally, if he hasn’t heard it, it means it’s too depressing to play. He’d agree, listening to this.  


  
_Exhibit A: We are friends in a sleeping bag_   
_Splitting the heat we have one filthy pillow to share_   
_And your lips are in my hair._   


That brings back memories, memories of wandering together, with other people but always together, the times when it was warmer to share body heat than try to huddle in two sleeping bags, all the times after they lost half their gear in that late night attack. They had spent months in that sleeping bag, curled together, and if they hadn’t been in love before, that would have cemented it. After a guy’s kneed you in the balls a few times, you’re either going to love them or kill them, and Eugene had been uncharacteristically generous. But maybe all they had ever been was two people thrown together by fate, not lovers, not really. Eugene could be happier with Five, or maybe Janine, or even Simon, who shared his little jokes and wound him up just the right amount. Even Sam would be a better option – at least he’d studied something sensible, could have been somebody, knew his way around the odd bit of wiring. Jack was just... Jack. Nothing special, nothing important. The song plays on, and he curls onto Eugene’s cot, or rather, his half of the two they pushed together. It smells like him, as much as anyone has a distinctive smell these days. No body wash or shampoo scent, just that person, magnified by a lack of water and wearing the same clothes seven days straight. Eugene smells like earth, like damp ground in summer, like the relief of rain after hot days. Jack’s never asked what he smells like.  


  
_Exhibit B: Well, we found an apartment_   
_It's not much to look at - a futon on a floor_   
_Torn-off desktop for a door_   
_All the decor's made of milk crates and duct tape_   
_And if we have sex they can hear us through the floor_   
_But we don't do that anymore._   


That’s probably true. Jack laughs to himself, letting his voice break halfway through it. The sex you have when you’re running for your lives and don’t know how long you might be able to do this for is, oddly enough, better and more frequent than sex in a shack within a row of tiny shacks, where everyone can hear everything, and the threat is somewhere outside, far enough away that it no longer acts as a trigger. He loves Eugene, he can admit that to himself, but sometimes sex is difficult, too complicated, too much working around what Eugene can manage, or how much pain he’s in, or just how tired Jack is, how sore from being sat in the radio shack for hours at a time. They’re people with hard lives, and whilst sex should be a relief, and sometimes is, sometimes it’s just a complication neither of them can deal with. There’s no doubt now, that Eugene has chosen this song on purpose, chosen it to wallow in his grief. They’ve done late nights before, mostly mocking that awful Late Night Love show Jack used to listen to in his teens, giving fake advice to fake callers. They’re never done late night misery, and Jack thinks, oddly, that it suits him.  


  
_And I lay there wondering what is the matter_   
_Is this a matter of worse or of better_   
_You took the blanket so I took the bed sheet_   
_But I would have held you if you'd only let me. _  
__  


That’s enough. Jack always listens to the lyrics, can’t help himself, knows he should just give up and give in. But he can’t, not now, maybe not ever. He switches the radio off and heads out into the dark, heedless of rules about curfew and being outside after dark. He’s on a mission, and he’s not stopping, not for anything.  


“Well, listeners, that was... something I haven’t heard in a long time. Fits my mood tonight, I think. Now, let me see if I can’t find something else to play for you, which isn’t quite so miserable. My illustrious co-host is... gone. For now, I mean. I mean, I hope only for now – but that’s personal, not important. Not the same thing. Here you go, listeners, have a bit of this.”  
Jack waits until Eugene’s got the track playing before he closes the door behind him, making the first noise. Eugene turns, startled, and his whole face falls when he sees him.  
“I thought you’d let me be.” He says, and Jack just wants to fall to his knees and apologise, to stop this where he can. But without talking about this, they’re not going to get any better.  
“I... don’t want you to leave.” He says, wary, taking a deep breath and letting it all out in a sigh, “That wasn’t what I was trying to say.”  
“Well, it certainly sounded like it.”  
“I know what it sounded like.” Jack snaps back, and then bites his lip, he’s here to make this better, not worse. “I just... I worry.”  
“Worry about what?” Eugene asks, carefully, like he doesn’t know where to step so as not to hit something vulnerable.  
“About you leaving.”  
Eugene gapes silently for a second, before he recovers himself, holds up a hand and cues up a couple of tracks to run, so they don’t have to worry about this accidentally going out on air. They learnt that lesson the hard way, but this is no time to think of that.  
“So your idea was to push me away first.” It’s not a question, although it sounds a little like one. Eugene knows what he’s done.  
“I’m never going to be good enough for you.” Jack says, and wonders for a second whose voice that is, small and broken, and filled with so much despair, before he realises it’s his.  
“What – ?”  
“It’s true. You had a job before all this, a real job, like a real adult, and I lived off the fucking dole queue and spent my money on drugs, booze and music. I owed my parents so much money they said they never wanted to see me again, and I spent the first days of the end of the world out of my skull on anything I could get my hands on.”  
“That doesn’t mean – ”  
“If the world hadn’t been ending, you never would have ended up with me.”  
Jack crumples into a chair, and waits for the response he knows is coming, the vindication for all of this.  
“You think I quoted Terminator to all the passed out kids I saw in those woods?” Eugene says, at last, “You think I didn’t step over and around living and dead ravers, ignore those asking me for help, because I was trying to survive?”  
“Bet you wish you’d stepped over me.” Jack says, gloomily.  
“Don’t be an idiot. I stopped for you, because no matter how many times I tell that damn story, I can never say that, never say I took one look at your and thought you were dead but gorgeous, and then you sat up and looked at me, and I was gone, Jack. I’d never felt like that about anyone before, and now here I was, renouncing my disbelief in love at first sight in the middle of a zombie-infested wood, to some kid in neon pants and not much else.” Eugene’s tone rises, angrily, and Jack’s watching him, can’t take his eyes off him, not when he’s like this, so gorgeous, so certain, “I wanted to keep you alive, not because I should have wanted to do that for any human being, but because I wanted you. Not anyone else, you. I don’t know why you think that’d be any different if we’d met in a pub somewhere, or online, or at work.”  
“I’m useless.” Jack says, quietly, but he can’t quite find the belief behind it, “You’d get tired of me in a second if this wasn’t the apocalypse.”  
“If this wasn’t the apocalypse, I’d have you tied to the bed as often as possible.” Eugene says, drily, “Maybe gagged, too.”  
Jack shudders at the thought, something they’ve talked about but which just isn’t feasible with the ravening hordes outside the gates.  


“We don’t have much in common.” He says, last-ditch attempt, but Eugene swats that away, too.  
“I know how you like to be kissed, the way some songs make you cry, when it’s okay to pet your hair and when it’s not, what type of food you want, what you miss the most, how you relate to people around you, and... and how much you love me.” He says, voice cracking on the last words, “We’re more the same than we’re different, Jack. If I knew you any better, I’d have to be you.”  
“So what, we were fated to be together?” Jack asks, but he’s smiling a little now, edging his chair closer.  
“There’s no fate but what we make ourselves.” Eugene says, with a crooked grin, and Jack bursts into delighted laughter at the Terminator quote, “Now come here, you idiot, before I turn into a sap like you.”  
“I don’t know,” Jack grins, “I think maybe we could do with a bit more sap.”  
Eugene kisses him like he’s everything, like stopping would be dying, like he’s been afraid of losing him all this time, and Jack realises he’s not been the only one of them afraid that they’re not going to last. He leans back, letting ‘Gene’s fingers card through his hair and his boyfriend flicks the mic back on.  
“Well, listeners, I hope you enjoyed this impromptu late-night broadcast. If not, please direct any complaints towards Mr Holden, who is much better at looking sorry than I am. We’re off to bed now, but the music will keep running for a few hours. We’ll be back at our usual time, but for now, listeners... stay safe. There’s people out there who love you, so look after yourselves and come home safe.”  
Jack twines his fingers with Eugene’s, and wonders, not for the first time, if Sam was right. End of the world or not, he got lucky. Really lucky.


End file.
